|
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 52 Number 25, October 26, 2022 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
King Charles III on October 25 invited former Chancellor Rishi Sunak to form a government. Sunak thereby becomes Britain's third Prime Minister in two months.
In his first speech as Prime Minister, he immediately emphasised that Britain "is facing a profound economic crisis". Although he paid formal tribute to predecessor Liz Truss, he emphasised that he had been "elected" as Conservative Party leader and hence Prime Minister in part to fix Truss's mistakes. But he used very similar language to that of Truss, in saying that he would "place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government's agenda". The difference is that "economic stability and confidence" for Sunak is what pleases the stock market. The anti-worker, pro-austerity agenda is however the same, and, of course, "This will mean difficult decisions to come." It can be said at once that this is not something the working class and people will accept, and are not accepting. While there is a demand from many quarters with a completely unelected Prime Minister that there should be a general election now, and hundreds of thousands of people have signed such a petition, the revolt of the working class is such that they are affirming their rights and interests as a class, no matter which cartel party forms the government. Rishi Sunak's claim to bring "compassion to the challenges we face today" is unlikely to placate working people suffering under the cost-of-living crisis. Similarly, his implied condemnation of Boris Johnson in saying, "This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level," is unlikely to win the trust of the electorate as the economic crisis continues to deepen, no matter how much Sunak declares that "I fully appreciate how hard things are". There was an even an echo of Truss's hero Margaret Thatcher, as Sunak concluded that "we" - which is meant to mean the people and government together - will "fill tomorrow and every day thereafter with hope". This was said without conviction and bereft of credibility, as though "hope" was as far as people could expect to go under his government.
Graphic: Daily Mail Online
What are Rishi Sunak's credentials? He is reported to be the richest MP in history, worth £730 million, together with his wife, Akshata Murty, according to the Sunday Times rich list. The richest man in the House of Commons, he and his wife are one of the top 250 wealthiest people in the whole of Britain. Bloomberg News proudly announced that "Hedge Funds Get Their First Prime Minister". The major source of their wealth is Murty's 0.9% stake in her billionaire father Narayana Murty's IT company, Infosys. The stake is estimated to be worth around £690 million, and allowed the couple to collect £11.6 million in dividend income last year. The Sunday Times says that the source of their wealth comes from "technology and hedge fund", implying that the remaining £40 million may originate from Sunak's time as a partner at hedge funds Children's Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners, or from his time as director of Catamaran Ventures, the investment firm also owned by his father-in-law, which he led from 2013 to 2015 before going into politics. Sunak's net worth is said to make him richer than King Charles III himself, who before his inheritance had a net worth around $440 million, according to an estimate provided by research institute Wealth-X.
Sunak attended Winchester College, an elite public school where fees are currently £46,000 per year. From there it was straightforward for him to go to Oxford, and read Politics, Philosophy and Economics. With his Winchester and Oxford background it was a matter of the right contacts for Sunak to get into Goldman Sachs and earn his first millions in investment banking, and then move on and up into the world of hedge funds and private wealth management. Marriage to the daughter of a billionaire was only natural.
TUC London Enough Is Enough - Saturday June 18,
2022
Liz Truss was no more than a figurehead Prime Minister, incapable of governing and bound to be replaced. It showed that the Conservative leadership election decided nothing and that the vested interests still are in contradiction with each other, manifesting the "revolving doors" of Cabinet, big industry and finance. That the whole of the measures announced in the "mini-budget" one week could be overturned in the next shows that the government's dysfunctionality and rule by decree was out in the open. Rishi Sunak seeks to give the financiers confidence that all will now be calm and the chaos and ineptitude of Truss's 45-day premiership ended. But Sunak and his new Cabinet seem characterised by deceit and treachery. It will not be forgotten that it was his resignation from Cabinet that finally precipitated Johnson's downfall. And he may well find that leadership of the Tories at this time promises to be something of a poisoned chalice.
The appointments to Cabinet appear as a shuffling of the cards, not as a manifestation of a Cabinet as a "broad church". They do not inspire the "trust" of which Sunak spoke. Jeremy Hunt retains the post of Chancellor to indicate that the economic of austerity are to continue for the mass of working people. The appointment of Suella Braverman, as wild a racist and advocate of transportation to Rwanda as it is possible to get, as Home Secretary has horrified all right-thinking people.
If Liz Truss was open in her stand against the working class and their affirmation that they have their dignity and their rights - as when taunting Keir Starmer on the last day of her premiership that he allegedly stood with striking workers - then Rishi Sunak is in practice as determined that the working class should be kept as far away as possible from political power. But it is inevitable that his programme will fail, as the capitalist crisis intensifies.
The independent programme and politics of the working class puts the human being at the centre of considerations. That is the exact opposite of what the Tories are doing right now. One of the chief considerations is the pro-war stand of the government. Despite the fact that war production is nothing but a drain on the economy, and does great damage to all public services as well as being disastrous to the environment, Rishi Sunak's government is set on this course. His stand is to whip up hysteria against Russia and China, and has stated that he considers China as "the biggest threat" to Britain. During the leadership race, Sunak set out a series of plans he would undertake if elected the Prime Minister, to defend against Chinese "technological aggression". "China and the Chinese Communist Party represent the largest threat to Britain and the world's security and prosperity this century... I will build a new international alliance of free nations to tackle Chinese cyber-threats and share best practice in technology security," he said.
The appointment of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister places responsibility on the working class to rally the people to themselves settle scores with the old constitutional order, and break the stranglehold of these corrupt, pro-war, anti-worker, anti-social ruling elites that Sunak represents. The establishment of a modern constitutional order which puts human beings at the centre of nation-building projects to humanise the natural and social environment is firmly on the agenda. Deep-going political reforms are required, and the events of the past few weeks only serve to bear this out.